Folk Lore eBook

CHAPTER X.

MISCELLANEOUS SUPERSTITIONS.

Glamour was a kind of witch power which certain people
were supposed to be gifted with; by the exercise of
such influence they took command over their subjects’
sense of sight, and caused them to see whatever they
desired that they should see. Sir Walter Scott
describes the recognised capability of glamour power
in the following lines:—­

“It had much of glamour might,
Could make a lady seem a knight.
The cobwebs on a dungeon wall,
Seem tapestry in lordly hall.
A nutshell seem a gilded barge,
A sheeling seem a palace large,
And youth seem age, and age
seem youth,
All was delusion, nought was
truth.”

Gipsies were believed to possess this power, and for
their own ends to exercise it over people. In
the ballad of “Johnny Faa,” Johnny is
represented as exercising this power over the Countess
of Cassillis—­

“And she came tripping down
the stairs,
With a’
her maids before her,
And soon as he saw her weel
faured face,
He coost the glamour
o’er her.”

To possess a four-leaved clover completely protected
any one from this power. I remember a story which
I heard when a boy, and the narrator of it I recollect
spoke as if he were quite familiar with the fact.
A certain man came to the village to exhibit the strength
of a wonderful cock, which could draw, when attached
to its leg by a rope, a large log of wood. Many
people went and paid to see this wonderful performance,
which was exhibited in the back yard of a public house.
One of the spectators present on one occasion had
in his possession a four-leaved clover, and while
others saw, as they supposed, a log of wood drawn
through the yard, this person saw only a straw attached
to the cock’s leg by a small thread. I
may mention here that the four-leaved clover was reputed
to be a preventative against madness, and against being
drafted for military service.

One very ancient and persistent superstition had regard
to the direction of movement either of persons or
things. This direction should always be with
the course of the sun. To move against the sun
was improper and productive of evil consequences,
and the name given to this direction of movement was
withershins. Witches in their dances and
other pranks, always, it was said, went withershins.
Mr. Simpson in his work, Meeting the Sun, says,
“The Llama monk whirls his praying cylinder in
the way of the sun, and fears lest a stranger should
get at it and turn it contrary, which would take from
it all the virtue it had acquired. They also
build piles of stone, and always pass them on one side,
and return on the other, so as to make a circuit with
the sun. Mahommedans make the circuit of the
Caaba in the same way. The ancient dagobas of
India and Ceylon were also traversed round in the same
way, and the old Irish and Scotch custom is to make
all movements Deisual, or sunwise, round houses
and graves, and to turn their bodies in this way at
the beginning and end of a journey for luck, as well
as at weddings and other ceremonies.”